


Man's Best Friend

by TurtleTotem



Category: X-Men: First Class (2011) - Fandom
Genre: Alternate Universe - College/University, Alternate Universe - No Powers, Dogs, Fluff, M/M, Roommates, pet-sitting
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-01-12
Updated: 2016-01-12
Packaged: 2018-05-13 09:02:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,272
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5702719
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TurtleTotem/pseuds/TurtleTotem
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When Charles ends up pet-sitting his sister's out-of-control dogs, his roommate is not amused.</p>
<p>(On Tumblr <a href="http://turtletotem.tumblr.com/post/106587257671/charles-is-dogsitting-for-his-sister-his-roommate">here</a>.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Man's Best Friend

It was true that “easygoing” wasn’t a word normally applied to Erik Lehnsherr. All the same, Charles had found him a perfectly pleasant roommate in his own way; he washed his own dishes, never left his shoes in the living room, made very little noise, and cooked amazing breakfast casseroles and these little chicken things with rosemary in them, which he was always willing to share. Frankly, Charles wished he could say as much about himself.

Erik would snarl at him occasionally when he left muddy footprints on the coffee table, or when he was trying to study and Charles started screaming off-key and inaccurate lyrics to the Macarena, but Charles knew full well that on such occasions he deserved it. Between their ongoing chess game in the corner of the living room, the usually-empty markerboard on the fridge labeled GRIEVANCES, and their standing appointment at the Friday afternoon matinee (with movie critique to follow at the nearby coffee shop), Charles would have said he and his roommate got along quite well.

So when Raven discovered, three hours before her flight to Brazil, that her dogs’ boarding kennel was at that very moment burning to the ground (fortunately without anyone inside, human or animal), Charles knew he had a great deal to worry about – but he didn’t think to put Erik’s reaction on that list.

That turned out to be a mistake.

”I’ll find another kennel,” Charles shouted over a chorus of ringing barks as he heaved the dogs’ bags of food, blankets, bowls and toys onto the kitchen table. “Just as soon as I can. But meanwhile they’ve got to stay _somewhere.”_

Erik just stared. One might have thought, from the blank horror in his eyes as Macintosh jumped on and off the couch, barking, and Prissy pulled the bag of toys off the table with a crash, that Charles had brought home Patient Zero of the zombie apocalypse.

“They’re very well-trained,” Charles said weakly, just as Twinkle waddled forward and took a dump on the kitchen floor.

*

Mac and Prissy’s father had, at the vet’s best guess, been either a German Shepherd or a mohair sofa, resulting in offspring that were now, at only six months old, creeping up on sixty pounds apiece. Their mother, Twinkle, had once been a hungry, pregnant stray outside Raven’s apartment building. Charles could only assume the fat, happy little pug mix was very pleased with the situation she had secured for herself and her energetic offspring.

If so, she was currently the only one.

On the first day, Prissy ate one of Erik’s textbooks and Mac broke a chair. Charles locked them in his bedroom with him for the night, where he proceeded to get not one wink of sleep, between Mac walking all over him, Twinkle (lonely for Raven) whining and digging and searching the room, and all three of them launching into frantic barks at every single unfamiliar noise from outside.

“They’re normally much better behaved than this,” Charles said desperately, as Erik, stone-faced, added _orange juice_ beneath _chemistry book_ and _chair_ on the markerboard of GRIEVANCES. Juice was still dripping off the hem of his soaked T-shirt, where Prissy had knocked him half over the table as she leaped for the window to bark at a bird. “They’re in an unfamiliar place, they just—”

“Kennels, Charles. Call them.”

He called six kennels that day. Three were full. One was far too expensive. One couldn’t keep them the full time of Raven’s trip. Another had only one space open.

“Put one of them in it,” Erik growled that evening, reaching across the table to smack Macintosh’s nose as he tried to eat out of Charles’s plate.

“I can’t separate them, Erik, that’s cruel, they’ve never been separated!”

Erik rolled his eyes. “Then put all of them in that other one, the one that only has space for a few days.”

“It’ll be even more disruption for them, going back and forth—”

Erik fixed him with a black glare. Charles felt Mac’s cold nose against his arm as he dragged a piece of pizza off his plate.

“All right,” Charles said. “I’ll call them first thing in the morning.”

The next morning, exhaustion finally winning out over the dogs’ noises, Charles overslept, and had to rush off to class without making any calls. Erik texted him twice during class, demanding to know when the dogs were leaving; a third text was a photograph of the GRIEVANCES list with two new entries. Charles winced, tried to dial the kennel with one hand as he jogged down the sidewalk to his next class – and dropped his phone down a storm drain.

*

Day three of dogsitting dawned with Charles juggling coat, books, and dog food, trying to get out the door early enough to get to the phone store before class. During the night, Twinkle had pooped in the bedroom, and Mac had cracked the window throwing himself at imaginary intruders. At the moment Prissy, desperate to get to the bowl of food in Charles’s hand before Mac did, was jumping at it over and over, her claws snagging his coat _and_ skin on the way down.

“Prissy, stop! Sit! Prissy, _sit!”_ Charles could hear his voice climbing in exasperation.

"GET DOWN.” Erik’s voice was like a thunderclap. All three dogs startled, turning toward Erik – and dropped to the floor in perfect Downs.

“STAY.” Erik held each dog’s eye for a moment, as if daring them to get up again, then stalked forward, took the food bowl from Charles’s hand, and helped him into his coat. “I’ll feed them. Go.”

“Oh, there’s no need—it won’t take—”

_“Go.”_

He went.

He got his phone replaced, wincing at the cost, and was still _nearly_ on time for his first class. When it let out, he called the kennel, fighting to speak through a sore, roughened throat that had developed during the night and seemed to be getting worse. Dog allergies, with his luck.

“I’m afraid we’ve had one client come in since yesterday, sir,” said the chirpy receptionist. “But we do still have two spaces.”

Charles groaned. “Fine.” Surely Twinkle could handle being away from her half-grown puppies for a few days.

Only then did the next problem present itself – getting the dogs _to_ the kennel, which was clear on the other side of town, and neither he nor Erik had a car. They would have to put the dogs in a cab – a thought that gave him chills – and the trip was likely to take nearly an hour each way. At least he could tell Erik the good news; Erik replied to his text with a remarkably unexpected string of heart emojis.

By the time Charles got home from his classes, the sore throat could no longer be ignored, and had been joined by a thick, painful cough.

Erik stood up as he came through the door, frowning at the cough. Charles already had an arm up to ward off the dogs’ enthusiastic welcomes; it took him a minute to realize they were all flat on the floor, wriggling eagerly, but watching Erik for permission to rise.

“You didn’t make them stay down all _day,_ did you?” Charles asked, gasping as he recovered from the coughing spell.

"Of course not. I walked them and everything.”

“What, all three by yourself?”

“You have a fever.” Erik’s voice was almost accusatory, his hand chilly against Charles’s cheek. Without meaning to, Charles leaned into the blessedly cool touch, his eyes threatening to drift closed; he hadn’t even realized how _tired_ he was. “Sit down,” Erik said, pulling Charles’s coat and backpack off with unbidden efficiency.

“N-no, we need to call a cab, get them to the kennel—” To his considerable surprise, he stumbled, the room spinning as he tried to brush past Erik. Erik swore and caught him by the shoulder.

“You are not spending half the night in a cab with three rowdy dogs. Sit down.”

In the end Charles spent half the night on the couch, Erik bringing him a steady stream of pills, water, food, blankets – anything he asked for. The dogs, unsettled by their caretaker’s strange behavior, hovered and whined; Erik locked the puppies in a bedroom, but lifted Twinkle onto the couch to curl up on Charles’s stomach. The warm weight was surprisingly comforting.

Around midnight, Charles insisted on going to bed, even though Erik had to help him walk; he realized halfway through the journey that he was definitely not thinking clearly, but it was too late now. Erik lowered him onto the bed and tucked him in with a gentle attentiveness that was somehow, in Charles’s fever-addled mind, so sweet as to bring tears to his eyes. Or maybe that was the pain in his throat.

Macintosh jumped onto the bed, tail smacking Charles in the face; Erik said, very firmly, “No,” and snapped his fingers, pointing to the floor. Mac whined but jumped down again and, to Charles’s surprise, nudged his head into Erik’s hand for petting. Even more surprising, he received it.

“Good boy,” Erik murmured. “Now come on out, all you lot.”

“B-but they have to sleep with someone, they’ve never slept alone—”

“They’ll sleep with me. You don’t need them walking all over you tonight. Shout if you need anything, or – throw something at the wall, that might be better, with your throat.”

“Okay,” Charles whispered, squinting through a sleepy haze at Erik’s silhouette in the doorway. “Erik… Thank you.”

“Goodnight, Charles.” Like his hands tucking Charles in, Erik’s voice was surprisingly gentle. Charles wasn’t sure what to make of it. Before he could try too hard, he was asleep.

*

He didn’t wake until nearly noon, which was two classes down the drain, but it wasn’t as if he could have gone in his state anyway. He felt better – still coughing, throat on fire, but not nearly as feverish. Groaning under his breath, he lurched to the kitchen for some water.

Twinkle waddled in, tail waving excitedly, and snuffled his legs, but didn’t beg. Erik must have fed them – walked them, too, or she’d have been frantically doing the potty-dance. Charles gave her some baby talk and stroked her briefly with his foot, wondering where the others were. Had Erik locked them in his bedroom? No, the door was open…

“‘Love is the voice under all silences,’” came a murmuring voice from the living room, “‘the hope which has no opposite in fear…’”

Charles wandered through the doorway, and found Erik in the armchair, reading from a volume of e.e. cummings. Mac was contentedly chewing a denta-bone at his feet; Prissy was curled up in his lap, just as if neither of them was aware that she was the size of a ten-year-old child.

“‘the strength so strong mere force is feebleness,’” Erik continued, “‘the truth more first than sun, more last than star.’ Would you look at that? He’s finally awake.”

This remark, apparently addressed to Prissy, was not immediately separable from the poetry, so that at first Charles only stared open-mouthed.

“Looks like the fever fried his brain,” Erik said with a sigh. “A shame. He owed me a chemistry book.”

Charles huffed a laugh and walked up to scratch Prissy’s head; she stretched and settled herself more comfortably against Erik’s chest. “I should take a picture. Here sits a man who hates dogs.”

“I never hated dogs,” Erik said, blinking in what looked like honest confusion. “I hate dogs with bad _manners._ These are perfectly pleasant dogs, if you can get them settled down.”

"I _told_ you that!”

"Well, I didn’t believe you.” Erik gave him a crooked smile, one that somehow reminded Charles of gentle hands tucking him into bed. For reasons he couldn’t understand, his chest went tight.

“Are you feeling better?” Erik asked.

“Some. A lot, really. I’m well enough to ride in a cab, certainly. I can get these beasties out of your hair.”

Erik shrugged. “I don’t mind if they stay. Actually I’ve been thinking it might be nice if we got a dog.”

Charles laughed in disbelief. “Maybe my fever is higher than I thought.”

“Let’s check.” Erik nudged Prissy off his lap (she gave an offended snort) – and pulled Charles down in her stead.

It took Charles several seconds of blinking shock to wrap his mind around the fact that he was now sitting in his roommate’s lap, encircled by warm arms and a firmly muscular chest, while Erik pressed his lips – _lips_ – against Charles’s temple.

Perhaps the bigger shock was how very little he minded.

“You do feel a little warm to me,” Erik said.

“Um,” Charles said intelligently, and realized Erik was holding his breath. “Well,” he managed at last. “Maybe I should stay in, then.”

Relief and hope lurked in the curve of Erik’s smile. “You definitely should.”

“Right then.” Charles pulled an afghan off the back of the armchair to drape over the both of them. Prissy took advantage of the moment to reclaim her place, clambering ungracefully up into Charles’s lap; despite his loud _Oof_ of pain, Charles put out a hand to keep Erik from scolding her. “She’s fine, just let her get settled. Now, I believe we were reading.”

“We were?”

“We were.”

It was terribly comfortable, really, cradled between the warmth of Erik around and beneath him, and the warmth of Prissy curled in his lap. The chair creaked under the combined weight, but Charles didn’t mind a bit. Eventually he drifted back to sleep, to the sound of Erik reading poetry, and all three dogs snoring happily away.


End file.
